With globalisation and the ongoing shift to a market economy, the agricultural context in which resource-poor developing world subsistence farmers toil is rapidly changing. Indigenous knowledge and skills that so effectively served previous generations no longer suffice. Subsistence farmers now require opportunities to continually upgrade their knowledge and skills in order to practise new agricultural technologies to better meet the challenge of sustaining and increasing agricultural productivity. Today, new information and communications technologies (ICTs) and open and distance learning (ODL) methods offer the means to facilitate information exchange among all members of a given population (policy-makers, researchers, educators, extension officials and farmers). Effective and cost-efficient ICT learning models promote lifelong skills development among resource-poor farmers, thus enabling them to improve their economic prospects and the quality of life of their households and communities.
COL's approach to poverty alleviation focuses on advocacy and support for use of ODL and ICT for educational and training programmes related to food and nutritional security, improved livelihoods, environmental sustainability and, in general, rural development. COL partners with national and international agricultural research, education and training institutions and organisations, including non-governmental organisations and community-based organisations, to achieve these goals. COL's work is focussed regionally, based on educational and training needs, and is designed to address the problem of rural poverty. The targets, therefore, are Commonwealth countries with poverty "hot spots" located in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and in Commonwealth small states such as in the Caribbean and the South Pacific Islands that largely practise subsistence farming and now require new skills to maintain food security and sustainable livelihoods.
Partnership with the Consortium Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has resulted in the development of models promoting ODL and ICT in their training programmes. In collaboration with the International Service for National Agricultural Research in The Hague, Netherlands; the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management in India; and the Imperial College in Wye, UK; COL has developed, delivered and revised a distance training module aimed at scientists working in agricultural research management that targets resource-poor farmers in India. The initiative has shown the value of incorporating group-learning approaches and hands-on practical work into agricultural distance education programmes.
COL has also successfully developed collaborative programmes with several national agricultural research, education and training institutions in India (Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University and Maharashtra Fisheries and Animal Sciences University) and in Africa (In-Service Training Trust and other training institutions in Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, and the Crops Research Institute, Ghana) that build capacity for ICT use in ODL for agricultural and rural development.
